Calm Tides Bring Peaceful Times
by haplesshippo
Summary: In which Hibari is a policeman, Mukuro and Chrome are lifeguards, Yamamoto runs a restaurant, Ryohei is a physical therapist, Gokudera is a marine biologist, Lambo is an actor, and Tsuna is a mermaid. Or, the really weird Future Fish Free! inspired AU nobody asked for but everyone got anyways.


A/N: Because Free! fanfics are all I've been reading these days, and it's a deep pit that you don't want to fall into because otherwise you'll be shipping every single couple possible in that anime. Seriously. _Every. Single. Couple._ In other words, for some reason my new OTP is Haruka x Sousuke.

Also, mermaids.

XxX

Mukuro loves the sea. There's just something so wild about the endless expanse of salt water, something dangerous that lurks right under the white foam to rise and drag unsuspecting victims down into its icy depths. It's untamed, with sharp claws, but it's also gentle sometimes, like a purring tiger. Mukuro hopes that one day there will be a shark attack, but no such luck so far. It's okay, though, because he can enjoy the simple things in life. He especially loves it when the gulls splatter innocent beach-goers with wet fecal matter, when the white sands burn at children's feet, and when the waves crash upon unsuspecting adults taking a family picture. But most of all…

"Ah, Mukuro-kun, I think someone's drowning," Chrome says, peering out into the distance. Her long hair is bound into a messy ponytail, and she has a hat on to protect her face from the sun. The eyepatch somewhat hinders her vision, but she's sharp enough to see things most people don't.

Mukuro hums a happy little tune as he swings his feet from his perch. There aren't a lot of people on the beach that day, probably a result of the change in weather. After all, it's getting to be fall, too chilly for most to swim in the ocean. Wimps. "My, I wonder if I should go save him."

"Mukuro-kun, your _job_ is to save him," Chrome replies dryly, returning to smiling at nonexistent passerby.

Point taken.

With a disappointed sigh, Mukuro hops off of his nice, high chair and meanders towards the drowning person at a sedate pace.

"Mukuro-kun, he's drowning. You should hurry up," Chrome calls out when she spots him taking his time. She wonders how exactly Mukuro got this job. Surely someone would have noticed that their lifeguard was a particularly sadistic man with no compunctions about letting people drown.

Mukuro has always reasoned that people need to be wary of the sea, which was why he should let them suffer a bit before saving them.

He isn't _actually_ going to let anyone drown on purpose. Of course not.

Shut up. That was _one time_. Make one mistake and everybody remembers, geez.

Shrugging off his shirt leisurely, he wades into the water with a safety tube and dives into the welcoming seawater gracefully, the tube dragging along beside him.

Mukuro would never admit it, but this was probably _really_ why he was a lifeguard. The water parts ways before him gracefully, like welcoming arms, and the world muffles around his ears. There are distant crashes of waves on the shore and vague shapes darting before his eyes. He stretches his arms before him and, in one powerful stroke, pushes his body forwards, slicing through the liquid quickly.

He really does love the ocean. It's too bad, really, that he can't enjoy the moment more. With a nagging voice that sounds suspiciously like Chrome's reminding him that he has someone to save, Mukuro lets out a bubbled sigh and breaks the surface of the water, looking for the person who is supposedly drowning.

Ah, there. A brown tuft of hair is bobbing right in front of him, maybe only a couple meters away. Probably someone who has disregarded the dangers of the ocean and decided that he can survive further out than most others have gone. The man's eyes are closed, almost like he's just fallen asleep instead of deciding to die, and the lack of concern for his own safety aggravates the lifeguard. He should be fearing for his life, not just drifting along the waves like it's a particularly nice place for a nap! Mukuro gives out another disappointed sigh and swims towards the brunet.

When he draws closer, he grabs an arm irritably. Surprisingly, the brunet's eyes snap open, and his glowing orange gaze captures Mukuro like he's a particularly interesting sort of fish. The brunet tilts his head curiously, and, before Mukuro can wonder at the oddities of the situation, drifts closer. Fed up with the lack of alarm the supposedly drowning man is displaying, the lifguard tugs the tube closer and shoves it at the brunet. The man blinks in confusion and grabs hold of it, and Mukuro gets a hold of the rope attached and drags him towards the shore.

Honestly, the lack of utmost terror most people display at drowning these days! It's such a letdown.

When he starts nearing the shore, the mysterious man's eyes suddenly widen, and he starts letting out distressed noises. Frowning, Mukuro turns around to see the brunet letting go of the tube. Oh, for _god's sake…_!

Thoroughly fed up at this point, Mukuro firmly grabs the other man around the waist and lugs him onto the shore. He doesn't care if the man actually didn't need saving! He'd been dragged down from his comfortable lifeguard chair and sent off to save the weird guy's life! So he is going to get the guy to shore even if it kills him!

(He wasn't actually going to do it if it killed him. What if a shark attacked the next day and he missed it?)

So Mukuro lifts the guy clean out of the water and plops him down on the sand and sneers a disgruntled, "You're welcome."

Which is when he realizes that something is very, very wrong with the mysterious man he's just physically hauled out of the water.

He blinks, thoroughly bemused, before raising his voice. "Hey, Chrome, I think you might want to come here!" He suddenly grins like Christmas has come early and nearly squeals like a little girl. "I think I just found a mermaid!"

XxX

Chrome and Mukuro stare down at the mermaid. Thankfully, the beach is empty at the moment. Chrome idly wonders why they're even on guard duty. A wind nips at her skin and raises goosebumps, further emphasizing her point.

"What do we do with him?" Chrome asks, tilting her head in curiosity. It's not every day, after all, that one encounters a real live mermaid. "We should let him go, back into the ocean."

Mukuro scoffs at the idea. "We can cook him. I best he'd taste good." Mukuro leers, and the mermaid slaps the sand with his tail, orange eyes wide and quite alarmed. "Or we can give him to the aquarium, let them experiment on him a bit."

For the mermaid is quite a spectacle. Now, Chrome's not an expert on mermaids, but her first meeting with one is one she will remember for the rest of her days.

The mermaid has brown hair, puffy and soft looking despite the fact that he had just been manhandled out of the water like a waterlogged puppy. His eyes are a fiery orange only seen during sunsets, seemingly on fire and alive. He has a swimmer's body, firm muscles at the shoulders and arms and chest, slim and lean around the waist. Scales litter his torso, the color of the ocean when reflecting a pure blue sky, sparking when the sun beats down on its waves. They are scattered around his waist before completely covering him right where his groin should be. Instead, what follows is a lean tail, powerful and massive, with a large dorsal fin and smaller fins flaring out from the sides. Finally, a large tail fin is spread out, sprawling across the sand majestically.

Chrome feels her breath catch at the beauty of the sight. Although the upper part of the mermaid is not something she hasn't seen before, the whole ensemble just…fits the mermaid. The spectacle when everything combined is just positively breathtaking.

Mukuro is nowhere as appreciative of the aesthetic beauty of the living mythical creature in front of them.

"I wonder how much I can sell you for. I've heard that mermaid meat is supposed to make you immortal," the lifeguard muses, and Chrome slaps him lightly.

"I still say we should return him. He belongs to the ocean, and if we let him go, he might return one day on his own. Let him _go_ , Mukuro-kun," Chrome tries to persuade, but Mukuro's eyes have taken on an unholy light that does not bode well for either Chrome's nor the mermaid's sanity.

"We could-"

"And just _what_ are you herbivores doing?" a very familiar and currently unwelcome voice hisses out, and Chrome has a foreboding feeling completely unrelated with Mukuro's schemes.

 _Just ignore it and maybe the voice will go away_ , Chrome prays inside her head. Lady Luck doesn't seem to favor her today, though.

"Kufufu, why, if it isn't my favorite policeman. What are you doing here, skylark?" Mukuro taunts back, the mermaid falling onto the back burner (hopefully not to be taken literally as a sign of the mermaid's future).

Before them stands Hibari Kyouya, head of the police force in Namimori and Mukuro's number one rival. Every time they've clashed, property is damaged and people are scarred for life. It's terrifying.

Chrome finds that she does not have to play peacemaker this time, though, thank _god_. Instead, Hibari's vicious eyes fall onto the figure lying on the beach and widen imperceptibly. He stalks forward, ignoring Mukuro's increasingly childish taunts, and steps before the mermaid, who is suddenly very still.

"…what is going on here?" Hibari asks, for once without an ounce of threat in his voice. Instead, miracle upon miracles, the policeman's voice is full of wonder. He crouches down and reaches out a hand, as if mesmerized. The mermaid flinches slightly, and Hibari brings his hand back, as if trying to comfort a small fluffy animal.

 _Which is pretty accurate,_ Chrome thinks. If Chrome has to think of another animal to compare the mermaid to other than fish, she would think of a small, fluffy mammal.

Suddenly, the wonder disappears, and Hibari is back to his normal, steely self. He stands and turns around, ignoring Chrome (which ruffles her feathers because _hello_ , she's standing _right there!_ ) and focusing on Mukuro, who had started sulking when Hibari ignored him.

"Speak quickly, or I'll bite you to death," the black haired man threatens, and Mukuro's whole face lights up.

"Maybe I don't want to tell you." Mukuro deftly dodges the incoming tonfa strike. While Hibari is someone off balance on the sand despite his mastery of fighting, the beach if Mukuro's home, and even without a weapon to counter the other man with, he's a force to be reckoned with.

Chrome sits down on the sand beside the utterly confused (and strangely not exactly scared) mermaid. She decides to ignore the male bonding time that Hibari and Mukuro seem to find of utmost importance every time they meet and turns to face the mermaid.

"Hi, my name's Dokuro Chrome. I'm not sure if you speak my language, but I feel like I should introduce myself anyways." She sticks out a hand and feels somewhat foolish after it's not taken. The mermaid blinks his gorgeous eyes, staring at the hand like it's the most mysterious thing he's ever encountered. Well, the feeling is pretty mutual.

Finally, when Chrome's nearly given up, he reaches out a hand and takes hers lightly in his fingers. His skin is smooth, somewhat damp from the salt water, and he frowns a bit as if he's found an irregularity. Chrome notices that his fingers are slightly webbed, and the back of it has splashes of small, delicate scales. Finally, he looks up and opens his mouth.

"Hi. My name's Tsuna."

And Chrome may fall in a love a little bit, because his voice is a soft tenor, lilting and musical like the ebb and flow of the ocean itself. Everything about this mermaid – Tsuna, Chrome corrects herself – is just…fantastical, like out of a fairy tale.

 _I guess he kind of_ is _out of a fairy tale_ , Chrome muses and shakes his hand gently.

"Well, Tsuna-san, I would like to return you to the water. If you want to go back, I'd suggest leaving right now before Hibari-san and Mukuro-kun finish their fight. Otherwise, you might be stuck with us for a while." Chrome prays that Tsuna will make the wise decision and disappear into the foaming waves without a trace, like a phantom of some dream. Instead, he shakes his head, curious and somewhat excited.

"I came to learn more about the world, about humans. I want to know more about your culture. Please show me the world, Chrome," Tsuna says earnestly, and Chrome's heart melts. She was going to protect him from everybody's insanity, Chrome decides. No way will she let Tsuna regret his decision.

XxX

Sincerely yours,

haplessgrapefrut


End file.
